All posts by Hutchins AAron

Born in Deutschland 1965, hometown was Bütthart, parents were not U.S. government employees. However, when father was tricked into joining the U.S. Air Force Civil Service, in 1969, with the promise that we could remain in Germany, we were promptly shipped off to Iran. Due to one of my Iranian educators being disappeared, along with her husband, by the U.S. ally Shah of Iran's Israeli & U.S. created Savak (for the then official terrorist act of promoting the idea that women can vote), and due to my U.S. citizen mother being placed on Savak's Terrorist Arrest List (for supporting the idea that women should vote, at that time the U.S. ally Shah of Iran did not allow women to vote, now they can) we left Iran for the United States in 1973, literally in the middle of the night. At the U.S. Embassy airbase the CIA operated Gooney Bird (C-47) was so packed with other U.S. citizens fleeing our ally Iran (because the Shah gave the OK to arrest any U.S. citizen for such terrorist acts as promoting the concept of voting) that we were turned away by the Loadmaster and had to take a chance on a civilian flight out of Tehran's airport. My father told me he and my mother had three culture shocks; first when they arrived in Germany as civilians, then after being shipped off to Iran as U.S. government employees, then again returning to the United States as unemployed civilians (because so much had changed in the U.S. while they were gone, their only news source was the U.S. Armed Forces Radio & Television Service which heavily censored information about the home front). Since I graduated high school in 1982 I've worked for U.S. government contractors and state & local government agencies (in California), convenience store manager in California, retail/property management in Georgia, California and Idaho. Spent the 1990s in the TV news business producing number one rated local news programs in California, Arizona and Idaho. 14+ years with California and Idaho Army National Guard and the U.S. Air Force. Obtained a BA degree in International Studies from Idaho State University at the age of 42. Unemployed since 2015, so don't tell me the economy has recovered.
International

Reports show that you can not trust a British bobby

Recently British Home Secretary Theresa May said they “…trust the police.” But several reports say otherwise.

A report by the Howard League of Penal Reform shows that 278,000 children under the age of 18 were arrested in 2009.  Of that 5,176 ended up in juvenile prison.  The report condemned the British bobbies for “…excessive and inappropriate use of arrest for children.”

Why arrest so many kids?  The report suggests that since Police Commissioners are elected, they go after the easy to arrest youth, because then Police Commissioners can run for election on the grounds that they have high arrest records.

In another scandal, the London Times reports that an average of 160 British bobbies lose their jobs for breaking the law, every year.  The law violations include everything from carrying their gun while drunk to assault and tampering with evidence.

In the past three years, 477 bobbies were fired or forced to quit, hundreds were fined, and 52 demoted.

The reports come at a time when the British government is considering giving police the authority of prosecutors.

International, U.S.

Iraqi officials say again, U.S. get out

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, said the United State needs to get its troops out of Iraq by the agreed date of December 2011.

Zebari denied that the Iraqi government was working with the U.S. to keep troops past the 2011 deadline.  Recently Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maiki said that the only way U.S. troops could stay is if the U.S. and Iraq agreed to a new withdrawal date.

Also recently, Russian and Iraqi officials announce deals that include military equipment.  Iraq might be trading one military super power for another, getting a better deal from the Russians.

Business/Economics, International

If you’re wasting food then you’re part of the cause of Global Food Crisis

Maybe your not old enough to remember when parents in the United States used to tell their kids, “Eat all your food, there’re starving people in China/Africa!”   A new study by the United Nations proves that kind of reasoning correct.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization released findings of a study on wasting food.  The study found that people, in the more wealthier countries, who buy food they don’t eat are a major contributor to the global food crisis.

People buying food in bulk, or ordering large meals at restaurants, and then they can’t eat it all, have just thrown huge amounts of cash down the toilet.  The UN estimates that 222 million tons of food is just thrown away in the wealthier countries.  That’s almost all the food produced in sub-Saharan Africa!

The United Nations points out that it’s not just food that’s being wasted but the land, water, labor and even investments used to grow the food.

Here’s another point; those people buying huge quantities of food are driving up the prices for food, because they’re increasing demand.   Help bring down the price of food: If you’re not going to eat it, don’t buy it!

 

 

International

Israel invades Gaza

Israeli ground troops have invaded the northern half of Gaza, Wednesday, May 11.  Reports say troops, tanks and armored bulldozers are advancing towards Gaza City.

Israeli officials say they are destroying “possible tunnels”.  Palestinians think the Israelis are trying to provoke action by Gazans, that would then be used to justify a larger military operation.

Recently Hamas and Fatah unified, a move deplored by the Israeli government.  Israel responded by withholding Palestinian taxes (which Israel controls) from the government of Palestine.

 

International, Opinion

France learns hard leason: Tax breaks for the Rich do not work

One of the things pushed through by President Sarkozy, at the beginning of his term, was tax breaks for the French Elites.  Four years later those breaks have proven to be an economic failure.  Now Sarkozy’s own UMP political party wants to stop it: “This government has a tax policy which benefits only a minority, and tries to tax the larger sections of the society. I am against such taxes.”- Herve Mariton, UMP Ruling Party

The French elites got huge tax breaks and exemptions, while the average taxpayer saw their taxes increased.  The French pay more taxes than taxpayers in Korea, or the United States, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

One of the breaks for the rich is a cap on the percentage of tax they pay, no more than 50%.  The average French taxpayer pays more than that.  On top of that, the French elites were actually paid by the government, a kind of Earned Income Credit for the rich: “While 8 million French live on less than 10,000 Euros per year, the Law was helping the rich. Not only their taxes were reduced, but each of them, all 1,700 of them in total, each one was given 30,000 Euros as tax compensation.”-Roland Muzeau, Communist Opposition Party.

President Sarkozy sold his tax plan to the French people, as a way of energizing the French economy.  It didn’t happen.  Pro-elitists, and pro-corporationists here in the United States don’t think Sarkozy did enough.  They actually accuse him of being too socialist!

French officials say they will reform the tax laws by the end of this year, but critics point out that the rich will still end up paying less than the average worker.  Is it time for another “French Revolution”?

Opinion, U.S.

Facebook wants exemption from U.S. election laws

Facebook officials are asking the Federal Election Commission to exempt them from U.S. election law.  The law Facebook doesn’t like; disclosing who paid for political advertising on their website.

Facebook’s arguments are really weak.  In a written explanation, Facebook says by disclosing who paid for the ad, it would make the ad bigger, and they don’t want bigger ads.  Also, Facebook tried to compare their political ads to things like bumper stickers and t-shirts.

How much bigger would the ad be, when it includes the name of who paid for it?  Also, comparing bumper stickers and t-shirts to paid political ads is comparing apples to oranges.  One is given away, or even sold, to supporters, the other is a paid advertisement.

What is the real reason Facebook doesn’t want to disclose who pays for political ads on their website?

Technology

Symantec finds big hole in Facebook, free access to thousands of accounts

Computer security firm Symantec, discovered a hole in Facebook’s security system, allowing third parties to access at least 100,000 accounts.

“We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of access tokens to third parties.”-Nishant Doshi, Symantec

Symantec says they contacted Facebook officials about the problem, and Facebook says they will fix it.

International, Opinion, U.S.

China & U.S. sign something saying they’ll get along

The agreement has a lot of strong sounding words and phrases, like “comprehensive” and “concrete plans”.

Here’s what the Obama administration said;  China and the U.S. need “a cooperative partnership that is comprehensive in scope, cooperative in nature, and yields positive achievements that benefit our people.”

Basically China, and the U.S., spent a lot of taxpayer money to sit around and tell each other their woes, and why don’t we just get a long.  Then they signed a long winded agreement that basically says ‘we promise’.

What has been going on is being called “cooperation talks”.  Basically the U.S. is  in big debt, China holds most of that debt, China wants a piece of the U.S. action, the U.S. doesn’t want them to have any, but the U.S. owes China trillions so they try to make happy happy joy joy talk so we don’t go to war, or, so that China doesn’t dump all their trillions of U.S. bonds all at once.

Fukushima, U.S.

U.S. nuclear plant under NRC scrutiny

The Brown’s Ferry nuke plant in Alabama, is under investigation by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  Investigators say a cooling system failure is of “high safety significance”.

Last October the plant had a cooling valve problem, in reactor 1, that cause it to shut down.  Operators say the valve is fixed.  But there are concerns especially since the Brown’s Ferry plant is similar to the GE designed Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan.

Also, Brown’s Ferry Reactor 1 had been shut down for 22 years before being put back into operation in 2007.